Thread: Mary Kathleen

Originally Posted by jonesfam

Did you visit the Mary K museum in the Curry, quite interesting. We stopped in at Mary K a few years back after the a big wet, weird but & the wife just wanted to go home so we didn't stay long.
Jonesfam

Thanks, we are stopping at Cloncurry, must check out the museum.

Originally Posted by snowbound

Landy.. V8, petrol or gas? Not any more its Nuclear! looks awesome, sounds interesting. Was it safe? I saw the radiation symbols on stuff there, it's not like that just disappears in a few years??

I think if it wasnt safe in the general area it would be closed to the public, but there was a locked gate on the track to the pit, which you can easily walk around. When I was checking google images I saw a pic of 3 blokes swimming in that toxic water. Now I'm ok with not wearing sunscreen but thats just plain crazy.
(I did pick up one rock sample that glows orange under UV light)

Originally Posted by Cobber

Thanks very much for those pictures - brought back memories from when I visited about 15 years ago

Did that (near bursting!) drum actually have anything in it?

I wasnt game to touch it, it looked very much under pressure, both caps were still intact.



JC, thanks for the tip, wee McGregor is on our list. Hope the cow didnt die of radiation poisoning. Next time I might pack a geiger counter


Weeds, very interesting, History repeats itself !!!

There's not a great deal in the 'Curry but the bowls club puts on a decent feed.

Originally Posted by goingbush

Thanks, we are stopping at Cloncurry, must check out the museum.




I think if it wasnt safe in the general area it would be closed to the public, but there was a locked gate on the track to the pit, which you can easily walk around. When I was checking google images I saw a pic of 3 blokes swimming in that toxic water. Now I'm ok with not wearing sunscreen but thats just plain crazy.
(I did pick up one rock sample that glows orange under UV light)



I wasnt game to touch it, it looked very much under pressure, both caps were still intact.



JC, thanks for the tip, wee McGregor is on our list. Hope the cow didnt die of radiation poisoning. Next time I might pack a geiger counter


Weeds, very interesting, History repeats itself !!!

I'm not sure you will get the 110 through the Bellara Tunnel Don. it was a tight squeeze at one end, When we were there I had to remove the roofracks on the Rangie to get through, it did have a bit of a suspension lift and a body lift so you might be right in the defender... the bats in the roof were quite active while we had lunch in there and when they smelt the bacon cooking, 2 actually fell onto the floor and were quite unwell from the cooking fumes i recall....

a fantastic trip, well worth the look around there.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=m...%3B3071%3B2039

this was a typical company house, the extra doors were actually fire escape doors for every bedroom, the lean to on the side of the building housed the laundry, and my sister in law rode her tricycle straight off the end of the verandah and broke her nose at age 3 or therabouts...

the better half has heaps of stories about life there as an 8 year old.

jc

wee mcgregor mine - Google Maps

the ballara tunnel

Originally Posted by bacicat

Wow, never heard of that place before. Reminds me of Yallourn down in the Latrobe Valley. It was built by the SEC for the workers of the Yallourn open cut and Power Station. It was a beautiful town, but torn down in the 70's to get to the coal deposits underneath. where it was is just a hole ithe ground now. My parents moved one of the houses way back when to Boolarra where I grew up. I remember as a kid going to the Yallourn cinema and going to the pool there. They were about the last surviving part of the town.

Looks like it wasn't the only town to disappear due to the ebb and flow of mining.

Thanks heaps for posting this.

I lived and worked at both Yallourn and mary K, i must be a jinx or something, probably something, Regards Frank.

Frank, I hope it wasn't you that was driving the truck that turned turtle...

Some great photos there - thanks.

Originally Posted by bacicat

Frank, I hope it wasn't you that was driving the truck that turned turtle...

Some great photos there - thanks.

No it wasn't me, I was working on the construction side of the mine, at that time we were building the Rod Mill loader, the truck driver wasn't hurt, he was playing silly buggers by racing the other dump trucks, didn't help that the loader was digging away at the bottom of the stockpile. Was a great place to work and made some good friends, great hunting in the gulf country as well, Regards Frank.

When were the photos taken Frank ????

In the late 60's we lived at a place called Moline in the NT (east of Pine Creek). My father worked for a company called "United Uranium". They had the Moline mine (was silver, lead, zinc at the time, but at various times in its life, the mill had processed gold, copper and uranium as well). They also had the El Sharana uranium mine (not operating when we were there), as well as the South Alligator gold mine.

I remember that the geologists used to travel regularly between Moline and Mary K - the work vehicles in those days were all Landrovers (I learnt to drive in one of them). My father had a Series II trayback, and his private car was an Austin Freeway wagon, which we used to travel regularly to either Darwin or Katherine in.

Went back up there for a look a few years ago - there's still a lot of things up there that I remember as a kid.